Imagine the Christmas Eve headlines.
Thousands Flock To Ancestral Homes!
Burdensome Taxes On Horizon
Roman Soldiers Assault Innocent Family!
Apparently They Looked Guilty
Governor Hosts Huge Party!
Wealthy Dine And Dance While People Starve
King Huddles With Advisors!
Amid Rumors Of Purge
All sorts of urgent “news” might have dominated first-century Twitter feeds. Social media streams would have been filled with taxes, police brutality, wealth inequality, and political corruption. One might think nothing has changed in 2000 years.
Meanwhile…
In a tiny village in the middle of nowhere, a baby was born and the universe changed. No reporters or cameras, and the shepherds who showed up apparently didn’t have many Twitter followers, because the event didn’t go viral.
This world-altering event, the single most significant moment in history, passed virtually unnoticed as attention focused on the “important” matters of the day.
I believe in being informed. It’s a responsibility of citizenship to know the actual facts rather than some media outlet’s version of what happened. So I try to pay attention and do my own research, to learn what I can about the “important” current events and stories.
I hope you do that as well. All those issues matter, but it’s easy for us to lose perspective, to get overwhelmed by what seems so absolutely life-changing right now.
Meanwhile…
The kids at the HOME OF HOPE eat breakfast and go to school and play and do homework. They try each day to move on from a horrific past into a life of hope and freedom. Nobody’s following them on Instagram, they’ll never go viral on Twitter. In the world of “What’s Trending?” they don’t matter.
In the midst of the big headline stories, they count on us to remember them. They count on us to never allow our attention to become so scattered and diverted by the immediate-urgent that we allow them to slip into obscurity.
Breaking News!
Meanwhile…